There are different types of sensors that sense the position of some physical object and provide information as to the location or movement of that object. One such sensor is shown and described in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/793,218 entitled “PRECISION SENSOR FOR A HYDRAULIC CYLINDER” and which, in turn, is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,061, issued on May 22, 2001, entitled “PRECISION SENSOR FOR A HYDRAULIC CYLINDER” and which was based upon U.S. Provisional application 60/104,866 filed on Oct. 20, 1998 and the disclosure of all of the foregoing applications and issued U.S. Patent are hereby incorporated into this specification by reference.
Some applications for these sensors call for a sensor that is as small as possible and, in particular, where the sensor is located within a hydraulic cylinder and where the piston movement is relatively long. The need for relatively long piston movement requires a relatively lengthy connection between the moving piston and the related fixed point of the cylinder. Where the connection is a cable winding about a rotating spool, increased cable length, and perforce windings, may increase the probability of overlapping of the cable coils on the rotating spool.